Technological advances are bringing many positive changes to our lives, especially more comfort and safety. However, despite all these benefits, new issues and problems arise simultaneously, which we, as individuals and as members of the worldwide community, are trying to keep track of and find appropriate solutions to. One of the rapidly developing areas today is biological weapons - one of the four weapons of mass destruction that have been used as a means of warfare throughout human history, and that is today, thanks to advances in this field, reaching new dimensions.
Though the prohibition of the use and other forms of disposition of biological weapons and their agents is subject to both national and international regulation, the law has been unable to keep pace with the rapid progress in this area because of its rigidity. In the field of the regulation of biological weapons, this is reflected in particular in the absence of adequate legal mechanisms to detect and penalize possible breaches of the legal rules. Despite the progress already made with the adoption of the Biological Weapons Convention, the shortcomings of the existing regime remain and are becoming all the more apparent with technological developments.
The hypothesis of this Master's thesis is that the current international legal regime on biological weapons is deficient in detecting and punishing said violations. The international community is aware of the dangers of the use of biological weapons, but despite its best efforts, there has been no significant progress. This work offers some suggestions on how future action could be taken in this area, with examples on national, regional, and international levels.
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